I touch her furry chest, examining my hand as the steaming blood blankets my palm. The crimson glimmers in the moonlight, warm and thick. I am unable to look back into her eyes as I calculate how much she’s lost…
We sigh. “Yes.”
I did not know animals could shed tears, but they appear in the saddest drizzle, leaking into her soft fur.
“Move Dellilian away…” Even that small voice in our heads is a ghost of its usual volume. “Move Dellilian from Bad Man.”
My hands shake as I scoop my friend up in my arms, wincing as more blood splashes to the pinecones and dirt. The lesion grows in size as if it’s being eaten by an acidic, live virus of the wooden instrument that Vrath used to hurt her.
Sapphire offers to help, but I reject it, fighting for dear life to hold my emotions together.
We walk until we reach a small nook in the North Sapphrine Forest. A hidden alcove where we can see the full moon, and a dazzling show of stars.
After laying her down, I hold the back of my hand up to her nose and silently thank God for the light puffs of air tickling my knuckles.
“Dellilian?”
“Hmm?”
“You were…so brave.”
“Yes?”
“You are a fucking hero… A hero!” I stroke her ear as my eyes begin to water.
Sapphire sits at my side quietly, keeping a warm hand on my upper back.
The small wolf with a big heart whimpers. “Dellilian hurt bad.”
“Tell me how to fix it,” I beg.
“Bad tree. Poison.”
I pinch the back of my neck, pleading with myself to hold it together. For Dellilian. For Sapphire. But I’m coming undone like a loose shoelace.
“Mr. Niklaus? Can Dellilian say something?”
“Anything.”
Her breaths sputter in and out, choppy and inconsistent, fading, like a song winding down until the final note is gone forever. I press my hands against the wound, buying as much time as I can manage.
“Dellilian watch many brave human and beast. Save many sad souls. Rescue lost children. Thousands of years. Long, long time. Remembers every name. Every good deed. Hero tales live forever and ever.”
Each sigh she expels drives a knot of anguish through my gut. Her dark fur loses its star-shining sheen, like a dull sky with no moon.
“Will Mr. Niklaus make sure Dellilian name—live long? Dellilian been so scared. But Dellilian not so scared—when Bad Man going to hurt—friends.”
My jaw and chin quiver, but I clamp it shut. My warring emotions battle each other under a pile of rubble within me. Her words… Her words are needles being stabbed and rotated in my heart vessels.
Sapphire’s nails dig into my shoulder as droplets of blood appear from our small friend’s nostrils. I push my hands harder against her chest.
“I should have protected you.” My voice cracks and collapses on itself. “Please, forgive me. I was afraid of you when we first met. You reminded me of bad part of my childhood. But even though I wasn’t very kind—you held my sanity together in that prison, my brave girl. Remember that night they barred my mouth closed? I was going to lose my mind. But you spoke with me all night, sharing stories about your adventures, and it made me feel like I still had a voice.”
Sapphire trembles against me as she loses it quietly, and it tugs at a loose string holding me emotions together. Slowly, I fight to grasp it again.
“Thank you for protecting us against the bad man. You—you were ahero. You showed no fear. Without you, that prophecy would have come true, and Miss Sapphire and I would both be dead.”
A muscle in her chest twitches. And the wound opens wider past my hands, like paper being eaten away by a fast-moving flame. But I don’t give up. I hold on to her as my triceps burn from being locked in place.
